[Closed] wheelbuilding - How difficult

The aim is to get it right for the first ride..i.e if it's not right, then take apart and build again!

It's quite straight forward TBH, but I can understand why some may find it a struggle..

DrP

I know a good wheel builder,so I got him to check my first set.
It's a nice thing to do ,just take your time .

First time out you'll end up with a serviceable pair of wheels. Organisation is key, keep different length spokes apart and invest in a good quality spoke key.

When the wheel is assembled, but not fully tensioned you need to avoid the temptation to turn each spoke by more than 1/4 of a turn.

Second time around, you'll build an even better wheel.

My first wheels are still going several years later.

I'd say it's important to build with a good quality, straight, round rim. Some stuff I've built the rims have started wobbly- then it's a uphill battle to correct a manufacturing fault.

Take it steady, you'll be reet

I just built my first set and I'm yet to die as a result. It wasn't that hard but did require a lot of time, fannying about and annoying mistakes that had to be redone. There are some good vids on youtube showing you how to lace the wheels, I found those really helpful. I followed the guide on Sheldon Brown's site for truing them up. It took me two evening to lace the wheels, and another two to get them properly trued / tensioned / dished.

I'm sure someone will be along to say that's ridiculous and they lashed their first pair up on their tea break. I enjoyed it and managed to get through a decent amount of nice coffee and beer while doing it, I wouldn't say it was chore. Having done it once, I'm pretty sure I could do a wheel in 2 hours now. I think good pros are around an hour all in.

It's easy if you take your time, no reason that your first pair of wheels won't be perfect.

I find it one of the most therapeutic things to do. Except when you're nearly finished and it begins to dawn on you that the spokes are too short or too long and you're going to have to undo them all and order a different length.

Just be organised and methodical - it's not all that hard to do to a reasonable standard. A lot more tricky if you're a perfectionist and trying to get all the tensions perfectly balanced and straight within <0.1mm, but then most people won't ever notice if their wheels aren't that straight.

My first build was rubbish, with tension so low that the nipples came undone on the first ride and I ended up stopped by the side of the road trying to do them up by hand. That was pre-internet though, and I didn't have any proper information on how to do it, so was working it out as I went along, and the second attempt on the same wheels worked fine with no problems until stolen a few years later.

You should get it right so long as you follow the guide. Wheelbuilding really isn't that difficult.

done two sets following musson's book and both have been great. go for it

It's not difficult, I did mine using the Sheldon Brown guide.

My advice would be:
1) be methodical, my first set were rushed and I had to do them again as I got the left/right hand spoke hole the wrong way arround.
2) I still make errors, like going the wrong way and ending up with spokes crossing over the valve rather than running parallel. Follow the instructions each time, or write a checklist of things to check at each stage to avoid this.
3) Get a tension meter, it removes a lot of the guess work.
4) Two options, nice stiff rims which hide any errors nicely, or lightweight ones which don't. My Road wheels are probably the best I've built, but they took by far the longest to do, but they've not needed looking at. By comparison I can knock up an acceptable MTB wheel in a couple of hours, but there'll always be wobbles appearing and spokes loosening in the first few rides.

I have built all my wheels using the Wheelpro book.

Most of them have then gone to the Alps on my summer bike holiday and none have ever failed despite my best efforts.

be methodical, take your time, the first 8 spokes are easy, the next 8 easy, the next 8 are harder as they are the easiest to lace incorrectly. From there its plain sailing, assuming the third 8 go into the right holes, (assuming its a 32 hole hub and rim)

no reason why the first pair wont be splendid wheels.

Its hard to put a time on it but I figure 2 hours a wheel and thats 2 hours of pleasurable quality time, me, my wheel and a few bottles of Peroni on a Saturday evening.

Musson book user here too - follow the instructions, take your time and it just happens that you produce a decent wheel almost despite yourself

Its worth trying at least. I've just built my 2nd rear wheel, took about 4 hours with used rim and spokes- a few mistakes on the spokes but once you've got your head around it you can correct wrong bits and redo correctly and you will remember for next time, maybe. I'm not convinced about a wheel jig either for the the very occasional build / true. I just had the wheel in frame with tape and cut zip ties, I found it useful as you can get the rim offset centered bang on the seatube.

If you put the correct 3 spokes in first it then sets you up to build the rest of the wheel.
There are also different lacing methods depending if a front or rear wheel & road or mountain bike wheel.
Asymmetric, reverse symmetric & symmetric lacing. This relates to load factors from Disc rotors & on the rear wheel the drive side.

Do you have any old wheels lying around?

The first build I did was to re-lace an old wheel with some new nipples. (some of the old nips were broken and rounded-off). That way I also had a point of reference WRT tension to aim for.

Though if the rim has taken a beating, that would make your like much harder.

There are also different lacing methods depending if a front or rear wheel & road or mountain bike wheel.

First wheel was fine for the hour or so that I battered it up and down stairs and off drops as a test, the spokes then detensioned a few miles in on the first "proper" ride, subsequent wheels have been fine - tho I did get complacent and have lacing issues on third or fourth wheel - pay attention to the instructions - easily redone once spotted.

My sauce -
From doing my Cytech wheel building course.
If running a DH bike with 203mm rotors they will use big forces on the wheel when applied, so YES it is important to lace the wheel a certain way due to these forces, a road bike does not have discs so does not apply!!

sauce? Pretty sure Roger Mussons book said there's no difference between a road, tt, mtb or DH wheel

Well any road bike will have a radial front wheel as there's no need for crossed lacing.

The disk side pulling spokes should always be on the inside, so that under braking when the pushing spokes are under tension they pull away from the caliper.

The drive side pulling spokes should be on the inside also so that if the chain derails into the wheel the pushing spokes feed it back out under pedaling forces, not wedge it down against the cassette.

That's my method, but different books/guides have different methods.

wheelbuilding - How difficult

Depends how good you are at it 😉

While there's logic for various spoking patterns (as laid out for example by TINAS), IME it really makes little difference in real life situations unless maybe you have a particularly close run caliper/spoke situation.

I've seen wheels patterned pretty much every way and they all work just fine.

[quote=transition1 ]If running a DH bike with 203mm rotors they will use big forces on the wheel when applied

Only if you also have higher traction tyres and/or a lower CofG.

To be fair, a DH bike probably does have both those things but would still say that in practice, it's not a real problem.

TINAS, interestingly (or not) a skim read suggests Roger's method has driveside spokes the opposite way around to yours and he reckons the disc brake thing is bunkum, mentions radial but doesn't offer any instruction/advice (no reason to really). Seems his method was derived from looking at wheels used in the TDF when he was learning - tho he has worked for various outfits (MTB included) and seems a well respected builder.

he seems unconvinced about triple butted "disc brake" spokes (ie alpine iiis)